How do I update all song locations to show as iCloud?

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aa3145 Author

Level 1

4 points

How do I update all song locations to show as iCloud?

The Issue I need Help Resolving:

All songs on my Mac Apple Music show the circled ! and when clicked give the error "The song “*******” could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" I need a process to update the location of all song locations to show iCloud. Not individually, but all at the same time.

Background and Steps Tried:

Within Apple Music, I used to have Settings>Files>Music_Media_Folder location set to an external hard drive. That external HD is no longer usable.
I do not have a back-up of that external HD given that I subscribe to Apple Music and use iCloud sync, and all songs in my library have an iCloud Status of either purchased, matched, or uploaded, so I can download any or all of them to any device I am logged into my iCloud account and using iCloud sync on.
I don't require a physical copy of all 4000+ of the songs in my library. I don't require offline access, I don't mind streaming, and would rather Apple Store the music.
Therefore after I lost the External HD, within Apple Music, I went to Settings>Files>Music_Media_Folder and changed the location to the Music folder on the internal HD.
This is when I noticed the location error for all songs in the library.
I then tried a File>Library>Organize_Library and selected 'Consolidate Library'. This did not clear the errors.
Prior to trying to play an individual song, if I right-click on a the song, and select 'Get Info', and look at the "File" tab, it shows the location as the old external HD. If I then try and play the song, and get the error dialog box, and I click "Cancel", that song's location will update to iCloud (in 'Get Info'), the error resolves, and I can then interact with the song as expected. I tried various means to trigger all songs to update with no success.
I would like a process to do this to all of them at once to avoid the pain of doing each individually. Or basically reset the Music App to open like I would open on a new device, like my iPad, show the synced library, and stream from iCloud until/unless I choose to download a song.
Most of my research led me to processes for pointing Music to the new location of the physical files. As stated, I no longer have a physical copy of the music files on my end, so these processes have not worked. I was not successful in finding a process to point back to iCloud.

Specs:

Mac Mini (2018)
macOS - Ventura 13.1
Music Version - 1.3.2.31
Subscribed to Apple One - Includes Apple Music/iCloud
Sync Library is Turned On (Used Match Prev)
All Songs have Cloud Status as either Matched, Purchased, or Uploaded

Help is greatly appreciated!

Mac mini, macOS 13.1

Posted on Jan 25, 2023 11:41 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

turingtest2

Level 10

274,516 points

Jan 25, 2023 12:10 PM in response to aa3145

Hi,

If the files are on your computer, but Music doesn't know where they are, then the advice I've posted below should help you rebuild the connections. But if you want to simply make every entry point to the cloud, so you can stream from there, and/or redownload to local storage at your leisure, then select all (perhaps start smaller though and test my advice), right-click, and use Remove Download from the context menu. This removes the local entry, deleting the file if it is found, leaving the link to the item in the cloud.

The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes or Music expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, the drive it lives on has had a name change, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). It is also possible that iTunes or Music have changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place, or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates at some point.

Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Cmd-I to get Song Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location the library thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drives. Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive label has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community.

In some cases the library may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.

If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

The location of the media folder under iTunes|Music > Preferences > Advanced
The location of a sample missing track shown under Song Info > File > Location that begins file://
The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2

See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.

tt2

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